Tag Archives: zephaniah

This post is the second half of an essay introducing Zephaniah.In this post I outline what I think are the leading theological themes in the book of Zephaniah, and give a bibliography.

4. Zephaniah’s theological message

According to most authors, the coming Day of Yahweh is the overarching theme of Zephaniah (e.g. Baker, 2012, p254). For Motyer (1998, p897), Zephaniah has ‘only one topic, and he never digresses from it’. Other authors (Dillard and Longman, 1995, p419; Boda, 2012, p905) also mention the themes of God’s faithfulness and mercy to the remnant and the universality of God’s sovereignty. However, I think these themes are best seen as Zephaniah’s particular emphases in the prophetic tradition of the Day of Yahweh as Yahweh’s holy warfare (Stuart, 1987, p231). We will identify four particular characteristics of Zephaniah’s proclamation of the coming Day of Yahweh, before concluding by pointing out an underlying theme.

1. The Day will be cosmic and universal in scopeZephaniah loudly proclaims that the Day of Yahweh will have a world-wide impact. The book opens in §2.1 with the striking repeated statement that Yahweh will sweep away ‘all from upon the face of the earth’ (1:2). The word ’earth’ here could simply mean ‘land’, but the allusion to Gen. 1 (Berlin, 1994, p13) suggests Zephaniah is thinking of ‘a kind of undoing of creation’ (McConville, 2002, p222).

The oracles against the nations in §2.3 expand on what is meant by ‘the day of the anger of Yahweh’ (2:3). Zephaniah successively picks out representative nations to the east, west, south and north of Judah, showing that Yahweh’s day will target all the nations (Motyer, 1998, p931). But on the Day that Yahweh consumes all the earth in the fire of his jealousy, he also promises in §2.5 to ‘change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech’ (3:8-9, NIV) in a reversal of the curse of Babel (Gen. 11).

Zephaniah shows us that the Day of Yahweh will be cosmic and universal in scope, both in judgement and blessing. However, this is balanced by the second theme.

2. The Day will be centred on JudahAmos testifies to an expectation that the Day of Yahweh would bring light for God’s people (Amos 5:18). But, in line with Amos, Zephaniah teaches that Jerusalem/Judah can expect to be at the heart of the terrifying judgement that the Day of Yahweh will bring. §2.1 begins (1:2-3) and ends (1:17-8) with an abstract outline of universal judgement, but at its centre is a fine-grained picture of the effect of the Day on Jerusalem, down to the details of different areas of the city that will be impacted. Far from being overlooked, ‘at that time’ Yahweh will ‘search Jerusalem with lamps’ (1:12, NIV).

A similar point is made in §2.3, where the oracles against the nations conclude, on Moyter’s (1998, p901) analysis, with a lament for ‘the oppressing city’, where morning by morning Yahweh shows forth his justice in the temple (3:1-5).

In §2.5, despite the universalism of the salvation, Judah remains at the centre of the Day: the haughty will be removed from Zion, and instead of fighting against her, Yahweh in her midst will be like a warrior celebrating winning the battle (3:17, NIV).

Jerusalem/Judah then will be at the heart of what Yahweh will do in the coming Day, both in judgement and salvation.

3. The Day will leave behind a remnantThe third theme Zephaniah draws our attention to is the discriminating nature of the Day. Yahweh’s anger will not sweep away everyone. This is implied in the careful searching Yahweh will do in order to find those in Jerusalem who harbour complacency in their hearts (1:12) and becomes clearer in the call to seek Yahweh (2:1-4) in order to to be ‘hidden on the day of the anger of Yahweh’ (2:4). From 2:7 onwards we see the presence of a remnant, which is most easily understood as those who have been hidden on the Day, and who are now in a position to take possession of new territory. The focus shifts fully to the remnant in §2.5, where we see that those left in Israel will be humble (3:12 c.f. 2:3) in contrast to the proud in the nations (2:10, 15) and in Jerusalem (3:11) who will be taken away. However, the remnant is not pictured as being worthy of escaping the judgement: it is Yahweh himself who removes their shame (3:11) and takes away the judgements against them (3:15).

4. The Day restores the fortunes of the remnantThe book concludes with the two sets of three promises that will take place ’at that time’ (3:19-20), a phrase earlier associated with the Day (3:9). Yahweh promises to restore the fortunes of those who mourn for the festival (the context suggests a reference to the humble remnant who seek Yahweh) by making them praised in all the earth (3:19,20). This section forms an inclusio with 3:9-13, which suggests that 3:14-17 also refers to the remnant. In the Day of Yahweh (3:16), the remnant’s shame and guilt will be taken away (3:11, 15) so that they can enjoy an unhindered and unending relationship with Yahweh, where saved Zion will sing for joy and Yahweh will sing a song of triumphant love over the people he has saved (3:14-17).

Conclusion: The underlying themeWhile the Day of Yahweh is undoubtedly the controlling motif, it would be remiss to comment on Zephaniah without bringing into focus the central theme in its proclamation of the Day of Yahweh: that it is the Day particularly of Yahweh himself (Baker, 1996, p852). On that day, Yahweh will personally search out and fight against the people who have not sought him (1:6), but strikingly, rejoice over remnant Zion with ‘loud shouting’ (3:17). In the meantime, his people must seek him, and wait for the Day when Yahweh ‘rises’ (3:8). For Zephaniah, the Day of Yahweh will be an intensely personal revelation of Yahweh himself.

Zephaniah has long been a favourite book of mine, ever since some memorable one-to-ones with a friend in London who was preparing to teach it on camp.

Last term we had to write a short essay covering the dating, authorship, outline and theology of a Minor Prophet: basically the kinds of things you normally get in the introduction to a commentary. My submission received a decent mark, so I thought I’d post it here for the benefit of those who don’t have access to good library resources.

Today I’ll post my discussion of the date, authorship and outline of Zephaniah and follow up with the theology of Zephaniah and the bibliography in another post.

1. Dating

The book of Zephaniah presents itself as ’the word of Yahweh that was to Zephaniah … in the days of Josiah’ (1:1) , i.e. 640-609 B.C. Josiah was a reforming king whose rule, in the view of the authors of Kings and Chronicles, marks one of ‘the highest points in the post-Solomonic phase of the monarchy’ (Boda, 2012, p899) after the low point of his father Manasseh. Although this dating has been questioned, recent critical scholarship tends to assign ‘the greater part of the book to Zephaniah’ (Kselman, 1992, p1078). One author who disagrees with that view is Ben Zvi (discussed in Berlin, 1994, pp34-40). Ben Zvi dates the final form of the book to the post-exilic period, where its message would have been most meaningful (Berlin, 1994, p34). However, Berlin points out that even Ben Zivi acknowledges that core material in the book can probably be traced to Zephaniah himself (1994, p33,42).

Scholars debate when Zephaniah is to be dated within Josiah’s reign. Berlin (1994, p34) says that the consensus is that Zephaniah prophesied before Josiah’s reforms in 622 B.C. because Zephaniah’s description of Jewish society is so similar to the portrait of Judah before Josiah’s reforms in 2 Kings 22. However, a number of commentators (e.g. Baker, 1996, p851) note that Josiah’s reforms, while celebrated by the author of Kings, appear to be centralised and top down. Zephaniah may be targeting a literal ‘remnant of the Baal’ (1:4), priests who persisted in serving Baal, despite state opposition to the practice. In favour of a post-reform date, Robertson (1990, p254-256) points to Zephaniah’s extensive verbal links with Deuteronomy, the discovery or production of which is usually taken to have provided the theological impetus for Josiah’s reforms (Sweeney, 2000, p494). In my view Robertson’s argument is compelling and has not been overturned by other scholarship (e.g. Mason, 1994, p41). Accordingly, we can date the substantial body of Zephaniah to between 622-612 B.C., after the discovery of the book of the Law, and before the fall of Nineveh (Baker, 2012, p254).

2. Authorship

Following the current consensus, I take Zephaniah as substantially authored by the prophet himself. Zephaniah seems to have been a common name, and may reflect a godly family (Zephaniah means ‘Yahweh has hidden, Baker, 1996, p851). We are given no information about the prophet himself apart from the four generation genealogy, which goes back to Hezekiah. This unusually long genealogy is normally taken to mean that Zephaniah was a descendant of King Hezekiah, whose reforms Josiah in many ways imitated (Baker, 2012, p254). Blenkinsopp (cited in Berlin, 1994, p66) defers from the consensus by suggesting that Zephaniah’s father ‘Cushi’ is an Egyptian, due to the similarity between his name and Cush, the Biblical name for Egypt. The longer genealogy would then serve to authenticate Zephaniah as a true Israelite (Berlin, 1994, pp66-67). However, according to Deut. 23:7-8, only children born to second generation Egyptian-Israelites were fully Israelite, so in my view the majority opinion provides the best explanation for the presence of the genealogy.

3. Contents

Berlin (1994, pp12-19) notes that there is little consensus on how to subdivide Zephaniah. The following description of the contents of Zephaniah builds on the analysis of Motyer (1998, pp901-902) and Sweeney (1991):

Superscription (1:1)

Call to seek Yahweh in the light of the coming Day of Yahweh (1:2-3:20)

The Day of Yahweh I – cosmic and individual judgement (1:2-18)

Call I: seek Yahweh humbly (2:1-4)

The Day of Yahweh II – worldwide and local judgement (2:5-3:7)

Call II: wait for Yahweh trustingly (3:8)

The Day of Yahweh III – universal and local salvation for the remnant (3:9-20)